Brown Sugar Cookie Bars

Some days just call for a sugar cookie. These are amazing! They are made with browned butter, which gives them a different taste that is amazingly good! Then they are topped with a caramel frosting and sprinkled with salt. Hard to beat that combination!

 

Brown Sugar Cookie Bars

13 Tbsp. butter

2 tsp. vanilla

1 c. brown sugar

1/2 c. granulated sugar

2 eggs

2 c. flour, slightly heaped

dash salt

Place butter in a saucepan over medium heat and melt. Continue to heat, stirring to prevent burning. Butter will boil for several minutes, then begin to change color and turn brown. Remove from heat at this point and allow to cool about 5 minutes. While the butter is cooling, cream the sugars, vanilla, and eggs together in a medium bowl. When the butter is cooled, add to the creamed mixture and stir to combine. Add the flour and salt and stir. Once it is mixed, line a 9x13 inch pan with aluminum foil and spray it with cooking spray. Put the batter in the pan and press the dough into and even layer so it fills the pan. Bake at 350 for 20-25 minutes or until the edges turn golden brown. Remove and allow to cool.

Caramel frosting

1/2 c. butter

1 c. brown sugar

1/4 c. milk

3 1/2 c. powdered sugar

Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Add the brown sugar. Heat the mixture comes to a boil. Add milk and bring to a boil again. Boil 1-2 minutes. Remove from the heat and add powdered sugar. Spread over cooled cookie bars and sprinkle frosting with coarse salt. Allow to cool completely.

Sausage Dip

One of my co-workers brought this to work adn shared with everyone. I had to have the recipe. And it is super easy and goes with our dip nights! Winner!

 

Sausage Dip - adapted from Erick Bramstead

1 pound Italian sausage

16 oz. cream cheese

1 can Rotel 

Brown sausage over medium heat and drain. Add in cream cheese and Rotel, stir until smooth.  Keep warm until serving.

Garlic Cheese Balls

I make these to go with our dip nights at times. The boys LOVE them! I do, too. They aren't supposed to leak cheese like in the picture, but I apparently didn't seal them very well this time. Oh well. They still tasted good!

 

Garlic Cheese Balls

1 tube biscuits (10)

20 cubes of cheddar cheese, I like sharp cheddar the best

3 Tbsp. butter

garlic

Parmesan cheese

Open the tube of biscuit dough.  Tear the biscuit each in half. Flatten each bit of dough slightly and then wrap around a cheese cube. Try to seal all the edges so you don't end up with cheese everywhere. Roll the dough covered cube in a ball and set aside until all of them are done. Place the butter in a microwave safe bowl and melt it. Add the garlic to the bowl and mix well. I found a tube of garlic paste in the produce section of my grocery store and I squeeze a bit of that into my butter and stir. Place the Parmesan cheese in another bowl. Roll each dough ball in the butter, then the Parmesan and place on a lined cookie sheet. You can line with either aluminum foil or parchment paper. I sprayed it with non-stick cooking spray as well. When all the dough balls are coated, bake at 375 degrees for 10-12 minutes or until the cheese balls are golden brown.

Banana Bread

This is one of the boys' favorite snacks! They are so excited to see it when I make this bread! I rarely make only one loaf. I don't like having my oven on for an entire hour for one loaf of read my kids will have gone in about 5 minutes! I usually end up making 2-3 loaves at a time and freezing some of them for later. They freeze really well. Thank goodness!

 

Banana Bread

1/3 c. butter, melted

2 Tbsp. milk

2 eggs

 1 c. mashed banana

1 3/4 c. flour

2/3 c. sugar

2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1/4 tsp. salt

Mix butter, milk, eggs, and banana together in a large bowl. Add the dry ingredients and mix until combined. This batter should be lumpy.  Pour the batter into a greased loaf pan and bake at 350 degrees for about an hour or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the loaf comes out clean.

Cheesecake Brownies

I was informed one day that brownies are my "thing" and I need to forget baking anything else. This is the recipe that earned me this distiction - if that's what you want to call it! I'm afraid I'm not going to stick to brownies only, however. I like to bake the other things, too!

This is a recipe I found in a magazine aeons ago. I have no idea which one but I have probably been making them for over 20 years now. They are delicious!

 

Cheesecake Brownies

brownie layer:

6 Tbsp. butter

3 oz. unsweetened chocolate

1 c. sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp. vanilla

1/2 c. flour

1/4 tsp. baking soda

Line an 8 inch square pan with aluminum foil and spray it with non-stick cooking spray. Melt the butter and chocolate in a medium saucepan over low heat, stirring until they are smooth. Take off the heat and stir in sugar, eggs, and vanilla. Add the flour and baking soda. Mix until blended. Spread the batter in the lined pan and put it in the freezer while you make the cheesecake payer. this lets it hold the cheesecake layer better without the two mixing.

cheesecake layer:

8 oz. cream cheese, softened

2 Tbsp. butter, softened

1 egg

1/4 c. sugar

2 Tbsp. flour

1/2 tsp. vanilla

Beat the cream cheese and butter together until smooth. Add egg, sugar, flour, and vanilla and mix well. Spread carefully over the brownie layer.  Bake at 350 degrees 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted about two inches from the edge comes out clean. Cool. You can lift these out of the pan easily with the foil once they are cooled.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Everyone loves a good chocolate chip cookie, especially when they are warm, right out of the oven. And everyone is convinced they make the best ones. Well, this is how I make my version of the best cocolate hip cookies ever. I have made these so often I have the recipe memorized and don't have to look at it anymore. Which freaked out my cousin years ago. I was staying at her house (she lives at home with my aunt) and decided to make them some cookies. So I did. My cousin came in the kitchen with me and was watching as I started throwing stuff in a bowl without a recipe and without measuring some things and freaked out a little. She went and told my aunt I wasn't measuring or using a recipe! I got tattled on! It was pretty funny because my aunt only shrugged and said she was sure I knew what I was doing. Thankfully, I did and the cookies were good!

 

Chocolate Chip Cookies

1 c. butter

3/4 c. sugar

3/4 c. brown sugar

2 eggs

1 Tbsp. vanilla

2 1/2 c. flour

1 tsp. baking soda

2 c. chocolate chips

Almost melt the butter. I use salted butter so I don't add additional salt to this recipe. If you don't use salted butter, you'll want to add about 1/4 tsp. Add is both sugars, vanilla, and eggs. Vanilla is one thing I rarely measure. I know about how much I am pouring in and I put in a little extra to these cookies - hence the 1 Tbsp. It's an approximate measurement. If you don't like so much, use less.  Cream these together. The add flour, baking soda, and chocolate chips and stir to combine. I use a medium cookie scoop to drop onto a cookie sheet. Then bake at 375 degrees for 10-12 minutes or until they start to turn golden around the edges. Allow to cool 2 minutes on the cookie sheet before removing and allowing to finish cooling. Or eat them while they are still warm and gooey. Because that is how they are best!

 

Banana Pie

We eat a lot of bananas. I have a lot of recipes to use up some of the older bananas. This is not one of those. This is a yummy, easy pie perfect for summer when you don't want to heat up your kitchen or a Sunday afternoon when you want a treat quickly. You can also make this a day or two before you need it and refrigerate it until you want it.

 

Banana Pie

1 graham cracker crust - you can make your own or buy one pre-made

8 oz. cream cheese

1/2 c. sugar

1 box (4 serving) instant banana cream pudding

1 1/2 c. milk

8 oz. Cool Whip

1-2 bananas, sliced

Mix the milk and pudding together, mixing until the lumps are gone. Refrigerate five minutes to set the pudding. While that is chilling, combine the cream cheese and sugar in another bowl. Mix until the cream cheese is smooth. Add the chilled pudding and 1/2 the container of Cool Whip. Mix together gently. Put the sliced bananas on the bottom of the graham cracker crust, spreading them out to form a layer on the bottom. Top with the pudding/ cream cheese mixture. Top that with the remaining Cool Whip. refrigerate until ready to serve. You can also use more bananas on top for garnish, but only do that immediately before serving or they dry out and brown.

No Bake Cookies

Another recipe from my past. I loved to cook even as a kid. We lived in Utah when I got this recipe and in a house without air conditioning. Yes, boys, I grew up without AC. And lived to tell about it! Due to the lack of cooling in the house, my mom was not a fan of me baking during the summer months. I was told 'no' a lot. But then a new family moved in behind us! And there was a girl my age! And she had a no-bake cookie recipe that I was allowed to make in the summer because it didn't involve the oven! So, thank you, Tammy, for sharing your recipe with me.

 

No Bake Cookies - from Tammy Cherry

2 c. sugar

1/4 c. cocoa

1/2 c. milk

1/4 c. butter

1 tsp. vanilla

pinch of salt

1/2 c. peanut butter

3 c. quick oats

In a saucepan over medium heat, melt butter. Add cocoa, sugar, milk, and vanilla. Cook until the mixture boils. Remove from heat and cool 1 minute. Add salt, peanut butter, and oats and stir until well combined. Drop by tablespoonfuls on waxed paper or you can use a cookie scoop. Allow to cook and set before eating.

Peanut Butter Candy

My mom used to make this for us when I was a kid. I never made it much for my own kids until after we moved in with my sister for several months. She makes it more regularly for her kids, so mine began getting it more often and loved it. Now they ask for it! I'm sure that the word "candy" in the title has a lot to do with that!

This is also a super simple recipe - no baking, cooking, nothing like that. Put it all in a bowl and stir.

 

Peanut Butter Candy

1 c. peanut butter

1 c. honey

1 c. powdered milk

Put all ingredients in a large bowl and stir it is well combined. 

*You don't have to use as much as I did for this batch. You can vary the amounts depending on how many people you are feeding. All you have to do is keep the amounts of each ingredient the same.

Roast Beef Sandwiches

These sandwiches are amazing and there is much rejoiceing when the boys realize this is what is for dinner. Thank goodness for that! It sort of makes up for some of those time when there is no rejoicing and all I get is groans instead. You know those nights... oh, we're have THAT again. This dinner gets the excited Oh! We're have THAT again! And then they run off and tell everyone what I'm making for dinner. I like those nights. It's a nice change. I like to serve them with roasted potatoes and the recipe is here.

 

Roast Beef Sandwiches

1 large roast - I usually get one about 3 pounds or so

1 envelope Italian dressing mix

1 envelope brown gravy mix

1 envelope onion soup

thin sliced Swiss cheese

slider buns

Place the roast in the crock pot and turn it on high. Fill with enough water to cover the roast about half way or so. Add the three envelopes and swish the mixes in the water so they mix in. Cover and let cook. I put the roast in the crock pot usually by about 9 in the morning and then turn the crock pot to low around 1 or 2 in the afternoon. Then it cooks until dinner time. Shortly before we are ready to eat, I shred the meat right in the crock pot, right in the water. I don't like it to dry out. Open the slider buns and place on a cookie sheet, open sides up. Broil just until they brown. Place half of a slice of Swiss cheese on one side of the bun. This is when I drain the liquid from my meat, saving it to use as a dipping sauce if someone wants to dip their sandwiches. Place some meat on the other side of the bun, then top with the cheese/ bun.

Cherry Bread

This bread is amazingly good. I love the cherry-almond combination. Ignore the hole in the top. I have a bunch of boys in the house that enjoy "helping" me cook. I made this for Valentine's Day. I need to use any excuse I can get to have some pink in this house full of males! So I took this excuse and ran with it! Pink bread with pink frosting! It was great!

 

Cherry Almond Bread

1 3/4 c. flour

1 c. sugar

2 tsp. baking powder

1/4 tsp. salt

2 eggs

1/2 c. oil

1 tsp. almond extract

1 tsp. vanilla

10-12 oz. jar maraschino cherries

cherry juice drained from jar

Drain the juice from the jar of cherries and set it aside. Chop the cherries up - I cut them each into quarters. Place them in a small bag and add 1-2 Tbsp. flour, then shake the bag to coat the cherries. This should keep them from sticking together in the batter. In a large bowl, add the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Make a well in the center and add eggs, oil, and flavorings. Reserve about 1/4 c. of the cherry juice for the glaze, add the rest into the bread batter. Stir to combine ingredients, but don't over mix. When the ingredients are mixed together, add the cherries and stir them in. Pour batter into a greased bread pan and bake at 350 degrees for abut 50 minutes or until the edges are golden and the top springs back to the touch. Allow to cool before adding glaze.

Glaze:

1/4 c. cherry juice reserved from above

1 tsp. almond extract

1 1/2 - 2 cups powdered sugar

In a small bowl add the cherry juice, almond extract, and about 1 c. powdered sugar. Stir. Add more powdered sugar until it is the desired consistency - just remember this is a glaze, not a frosting. Pour over the cooled bread.

Lemon Dessert

This desert is amazingly good! We all love it when I make it. I frequently take treats to work with me, but when I make this one my family demands that it stay home with us! They aren't willing to share this one. It has several layers to it so it does take a little more effort than some treats, but it is so worth the effort!

 

Lemon Dessert

Lemon curd layer

This layer needs to be made first so it has time to chill.

1/2 c. lemon juice - fresh is best, but I also use it from a bottle

2 tsp. lemon zest

3 eggs

1/2 c. sugar

6 Tbsp. butter, cut into chunks

In a saucepan over low heat, whisk the lemon juice, lemon zest, eggs, and sugar together. Add in the butter and stir over medium low heat. Do NOT boil this or the egg overcooks and you have little egg chunks in your lemon curd. Cook this for about 6-7 minutes or until the curd is thick enough to see whisk marks in it as you stir. Cover and chill.

cookie crust

1 c. melted butter

1 1/2 c. sugar

2 tsp. lemon zest

2 eggs

1 tsp. vanilla

3 c. flour

1 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. cream of tartar

1/4 tsp. salt

in a large mixing bowl, mix together the butter, sugar, lemon zest, and vanilla. Beat with a mixer a couple of minutes until it is smooth. Add flour, baking soda, cream of tartar, and salt to the butter mixture slowly, beating well. This makes a pretty thick cookie dough. Press the dough into the bottoms of a greased 9x13 pan AND an 8x8 pan. 2/3 of the dough goes in the 9x13 pan and 1/3 in the 8x8 pan. It's a fairly thick crust. Bake at 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes or until the edges are turning golden brown. Allow to cool. I use the refrigerator to cool it faster. 

Cheesecake Filling

3 8 oz. pkgs. cream cheese, softened

1 1/2 c. sugar

1 Tbsp. lemon juice - again, fresh is better

1 tsp. lemon zest

2 tsp. vanilla

1/2 c. sour cream

Using an electric mixer, combine the cream cheese and sugar in a large bowl. Add the remaining ingredients and mix well, scraping the sides as needed. Pour this over the cooled cookie crust. in the 9x13 pan. Use a spoon to smooth it out to the edges. Spoon the lemon curd over the top of the cream cheese layer and smooth it out as well. Take the 8x8 pan of cookie crust and break it into pieces. Sprinkle the broken up pieces on top of the dessert. Refrigerate at least a couple of hours before serving so it has time to chill thoroughly and set up.